"Suppose so." He added, without raising his head, "Wish to G.o.d the drunken sot would stay there." He continued, while still apparently reading the tape in his hand, "Father wishes it, too."
Thor was not altogether taken by surprise. Ever since his return from Europe, a year earlier, he had wondered how his father"s patience could hold out. He took it that there was a reason for it, a reason he at once expressed to Claude:
"Father can"t wish it. He can"t afford to."
Claude lifted his handsome, rather insolent face. "Why not?"
"For the simple reason that he"s got his money."
"Much you know about it. Len Willoughby hasn"t enough money left in Toogood & Masterman"s to take him on a trip to Europe."
Thor backed toward the receiving-teller"s wicket, where he rested the tips of his elbows on the counter. He was visibly perturbed. "What"s become of it, then?"
"Don"t ask me. All I know is what I"m telling you."
"Did father say so himself?"
"Not in so many words. But I know it." He tossed the tape from him and began to smooth his gloves. "Father means to ship him."
"Ship him? He can"t do that."
"Can"t? I should like to know why not."
"Because he can"t. That"s why. Because he has--"
"Yes? Cough it up. Speak as if you had something up your sleeve."
Thor reflected as to the wisdom of saying more. "Well, I have," he admitted. "It"s something I remember from the time we were kids. You were too young to notice. But _I_ noticed--and I haven"t forgotten.
Father can"t ship Len Willoughby without being sure he has enough to live on." He decided to speak out, if for no other reason than that of securing Claude"s co-operation. "Father persuaded Mr. Willoughby to put Mrs. Willoughby"s money into the business when he didn"t want to."
"Ah, shucks!" Claude exclaimed, contemptuously.
"He did," Thor insisted. "It was back in 1892, in Paris, that first time they took us abroad. You were only nine and I was twelve. I heard them.
I was hanging round one evening in that little hotel we stayed at in the rue de Rivoli--the Hotel de Marsan, wasn"t it? The Willoughbys had been living in Paris for five or six years, and father got them to come home.
I heard him ask mother to talk it up with Mrs. Willoughby. Mother said she didn"t want to, but father got round her, and she agreed to try. She said, too, that Bessie might be willing because Len had already begun to take too much and it would brace him up if he got work to do."
"Work!" Claude sniffed. "Him!"
"Father knew he couldn"t work--knew he"d tried all sorts of things--first to be an artist, then to write, then to get into the consular service, and the Lord knows what. It wasn"t his work that father was after. It was just when the Toogood estate withdrew old Mr.
Toogood"s money, and father had to have more capital."
"Well, Len Willoughby didn"t have any."
"No; but his wife had. It came to the same thing. Suppose she must have had between three and four hundred thousand from old man Brand. I remember hearing father say to mother that Len was making ducks and drakes of it as fast as he could, and that it might as well help the firm of Toogood & Masterman as go to the deuce. Can still hear father feeding the poor fool with bluff about the great banker he"d make and how it was the dead loss of a fortune that he hadn"t had a seat on the Stock Exchange years before."
Claude sniffed again. "You"d better carry your load to father himself."
"I will--if I have to." Before Claude had found a rejoinder, Thor went on, changing the subject abruptly, so as not to be led into being indiscreet, "Say, Claude, do you remember Fay, the gardener?"
Claude was still smoothing his gloves, but he stopped, with the thumb and fingers of his right hand grasping the middle finger of the left.
More than ever his features suggested a marble stoniness. "No."
"Oh, but you must. Used to be Grandpa Thorley"s gardener. Has the greenhouses on father"s land north of the pond."
Claude recovered himself slightly. "Well, what about him?"
"Been to see his wife. Patient of Uncle Sim"s. Turned her on to me.
They"re having the deuce of a time."
Claude recovered himself still more. He looked at his brother curiously.
"Well, what"s it got to do with me?"
"Nothing directly."
"Well, then--indirectly?" Claude asked, defiantly.
"Only this, that it has to do with both of us, since it concerns father."
Claude was by this time master of himself. "Look here, Thor. Are you getting a bee in your bonnet about father?"
"Good Lord! no. But father"s immersed in business. He can"t be expected to know how all the details of his policy work out. He"s not young any longer, and he isn"t in touch with modern social and economic ideas."
"Oh, stow the modern social and economic ideas, and let"s get to business. What"s up with this family--of--of--What-d"you-call-"ems?"
With his feet planted firmly apart, Claude swung his stick airily back and forth across the front of his person, though he listened with apparent attention.
"You know, Thor, as a matter of fact," he explained, when the latter had finished his account, "that the kindest thing father can do for Fay is to let him peter out. Fay thinks that father and the lease are the obstacle he"s up against, when in reality it"s the whole thing."
"Oh, so you do know about it?"
Claude saw his mistake, and righted himself quickly. "Y-yes. Now that you--you speak of it, I--I do. It comes--a--back to me. I"ve heard father mention it."
"And what did father say?"
"Just what I"m telling you. That the lease isn"t the chief factor in Fay"s troubles--isn"t really a factor at all. Poor old fellow"s a dunderhead. That"s where it is in a nutsh.e.l.l. Never could make a living.
Never will. Remember him?"
"Vaguely. Haven"t seen him for years."
"Well, when you do see him you"ll understand. Nice old chap as ever lived. Only impractical, dreamy. Gentle as a sheep--and no more capable of running that big, expensive plant than a motherly old ewe. That"s where the trouble is. When father"s closed down on him and edged him out--quietly, you understand--it"ll be the best thing that ever happened to them all."
Thor reflected. "I see that you know more about it than you thought. You know all about it."
Again Claude caught himself up, shifting his position adroitly. "Oh no, I don"t. Just what I"ve heard father say. When you spoke of it at first the name slipped my memory."
Thor reverted to the original theme. "The son"s in jail. Did you know that?"
But Claude was again on his guard. "Oh, so there"s a son?"